Organizing your sample libarary... no one I have ever known likes doing it but sometimes it's best to think of your sanity =P

Let's be honest though (not that it's a bad thing) If you frequent this site chances are you have way more than you will ever need in terms of warez/samples etc. It's like being a kid in a toy store and being able to have whatever you want. It's only reasonable to assume that you will end up with a house full of toys but won't play with all of them. What are some helpful tips that you use to sort through your stuff? How can you avoid the clutter and maximize your efficiency.

Someone I met told me they keep their most usable samples on a small thumb drive with a few gigs on it. That way their go to stuff is always right there when they need it.

Please please please share your tips?! From one sample hoarder to another I would very much appreciate it =)

 

Hi, my name is Zeljko and I like to organize everything, mostly my sample libraries, nice to meet you

I never was hoarder because of OCD, @Evorax knows, I got my kicks sorted by key, snares by character (acoustic, fatty, splashy and etc), hats like closed, open, hi by ultra, processed, basic and etc, basically I'm trying to organize everything so I can find ti quickly, if I need splashy snare, well, I just know where to find all of them in one place and etc, I even did this for my Sylenth patches, well worth the month doing it

There's similar thread like this I guess where I even posted a screenshots and everything, I'm on friends computer right now, so yeah

 

I'm a bit lazy, i organise by Company - then the pack.

i don't collect a lot of samples, because i barely use them. so i don't have an issue with organising so much.

i used to collect everything, and anything and then i thought damn, im hoarding too much and none of it was getting used.

deleted all my sample packs
deleted a ton of plugs.

only have what i use now, still got a few sample packs that i haven't touched or even had a peek at, but i plan to.

 

I had around 500 gb of ONE SHOT samples. Get cluttered and my workflow become really slow since i am doing stuff for clients (ghosting) slowness is the last thing i need. So I let myself to a jurney to sort all samples and realized i am in big mess. Took me around 7 days to delete duplicates and mp3 samples that was converted to wav. Believe or not i found around 50 000 douplicated files and around 10 000 mp3 to wav samples, sample companies sell all kind of shits copy from others just change names of files. I tag all samples in cubase 8 in mediabay its writes all tags in files so for example i can solo view only snares from all vengeance packs works snap and easy i am flying through workflow. Also SAMPLE LIBRARIAN is good thing for browsing and stuff. But i advise you to keep all simple and clean. Be creative not collector.

 

Organizing by Style and Company is best!
But have someone a fast and easy browsing sample player (wav, aif, mp3...) for windows and mac?
I can use my DAW (Ableton Live is good for playing samples) but I don't want to import all my sample libraries!!!

 

I really wish they had more affordable or try before you buy software like Soundminer.
Don't really know what else is out there?

 

I made that exact same question some time ago. Here is my method:

SAMPLES: I use Ableton Live, and use its browser to sort stuff out - everytime I find a sample that I really like I put in a "Favourites Library". Such library is sorted by music genre, type of samples (BD, snare, cymbal, bass, synth, ...) and its subtypes (kicks by key, snares by type, ...).

For sample packs they go by -> genre -> brand. A simple go/no go folder helps the better ones pop out.

PRESETS: first by style, then by VST machine, then by brand (ex: progressive, sylenth, vandalism). I also remove all the sidefiles that come with those banks (place some of the useful stuff they sometimes bring - kicks, MIDIs - in a parallel folder).

 

Thanks for the recommends thus far these tips have been super useful (once I actually get around to it). I'm slightly OCD myself but at the same time it's easy to get cluttered really quickly when I'm not focused on it and then I get frustrated because it's become difficult to manage. I never knew anything like Sample Librarian ever existed sounds like a real godsend I'm really interested in that but does it sort by key? Are there alternatives to it? Really sorry about asking a question that had been posted already. Thanks again for the welcome...I've been lurking around for a while just always been to coy to say anything. Felt like you folks would eat me alive =P